For years I have had a dream to also go to high schools in order to reach out to larger groups there. I am inspired by various organizations in America and The Netherlands. For a long time I tried to build cooperation, but most of the time it got stuck, for whatever reason.
Until spring 2019!
In 2019 this beautiful dream came true!! I found support in a local foundation in Oradea and the people of this foundation are eager to work together on this and we started the project ‘Fă un pas’. ‘Fă un pas’ literally means ‘Take a step’ and we call ourselves ‘Make a Step’. We want to make it! I am grateful that this foundation wants to act as an ‘umbrella’ so that we can also legally do various activities and seek cooperation with various local professionals.
The workshop consists of various activities that we do at the school, with the students. With these activities we try to connect with them, to make them think about themselves, about others or situations they find themselves in. We teach a little and we do a lot of interaction. We also try to be on the same level as they are. We do this, for example, by sharing from our own lives. We also challenge them to take concrete steps and to be transparent. To support this, we take a first step ourselves and ask them to follow. This workshop aims to make young people realize that they are valuable and that they can support each other. It also confronts them, for example, with the harmful side of bullying and challenge them to step out of their own comfort zone. The atmosphere in which these activities are taking place is based on a positive approach. Our motivation is that we want to make God known as a God of love! We want to come to every school, either it is a Christian school or not, that doesn’t matter. We want not to ‘condemn bad behavior’, but to ‘stimulate good behavior’. This workshop is not an evangelism program, but teaches that a positive attitude and good morals and values can improve the quality of life, which I would call ‘practical gospel’. The workshop touches the students on a ‘social/emotional’ level and because it does not have an ‘evangelizing character’ and we can also come to non-Christian schools, it gives us a much wider reach!
In May 2019 we ran a ‘pilot’. We have done three workshops at two schools in Oradea. This was a great success!! Both students and school leaders (either teacher or mentor or school psychologist) were very positive!
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, things have changed and a large part of support from England has been lost. As a result, we do not have the capacity to operate directly in schools again. At the moment (October 2022) we are expanding our network to build a more stable team, to better arrange aftercare and to collaborate with various organizations and to develop a good strategy and policy. There is still a lot to do in this area, but we are taking steps.
We have now been able to reach hundreds of teenagers in Oradea and beyond and we receive invitations from other parts of Romania. Follow us on our social media channels.
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